Criminal
Justice

Cloverdale
Police

At
a January 11th meeting between Women's Justice Center and Sargents
Allred and King of the Cloverdale Police Department, the officers
acknowledged the need for improvement in police services to Cloverdale's
growing Latino population. To bring about these improvements Cloverdale
Police Department has agreed to ongoing meetings with representatives
of the Cloverdale Latino community. If you are interested in participating,
call Sgt. Scott Allred at 894- 2150 or call us at Women's Justice
Center at 575-3150.

We arranged the January
11 meeting in response to a spousal rape case of a Spanish-speaking
victim that was very poorly handled by Cloverdale Police. In addition
to working meetings with the community, we recommended the following
additional changes which are crucial for providing adequate police
services to Hispanic victims of rape and domestic violence in Cloverdale:

That Cloverdale Police
Department subscribe immediately to the AT&T language line and
that this line be used in obtaining all statements from non-English
speaking victims of domestic violence and rape, both at the scene
and in the station. (The AT&T language line allows police to immediately
reach a professional interpreter by phone 24 hrs a day.)

That the next officer
hired at Cloverdale be Spanish-speaking and bi-cultural. Currently,
there are no Spanish-speaking officers in the Department and none
who are members of a racial minority. Cloverdale Police also need
to use the local media to recruit locally.

That Cloverdale prioritize
discussions of rape and domestic violence in their community relations
activities. The very low numbers of reported rapes in Cloverdale
relative to population size indicate that local victims of violence
against women feel reluctant to call on police for help.

The
current population of the town of Cloverdale is twenty five to thirty
percent Hispanic. Law requires that police and other public agencies
provide equal services to all members of a community. When a segment
of the population speaks a language other than English this means
that the agency must provide their services in the non-English language.)

Sargents Allred and King
listened carefully to concerns and are open to working with the
Latino the community to make these urgently needed.